MPs and experts condemn the massive collection of overseas human remains in UK museums

The enormous quantity of foreign human remains stored by UK museums represents a disgraceful inheritance of colonial rule, with many specimens kept in ways that offend spiritual beliefs, MPs and archaeologists say.

A probe by CuriosityNews discovered that British museums possess over 263,000 human‑remains items from across the globe, ranging from complete skeletons and preserved bodies such as Egyptian mummies to skulls, bones, skin, teeth, nails, scalps and hair.

Freedom‑of‑information replies obtained by CuriosityNews showed that 37,000 of those items are confirmed to have come from abroad, including thousands sourced from former British colonies, while the provenance of another 16,000 pieces remains unknown.

Of the 28,914 items known to originate outside Europe, 11,856 were traced to Africa, 9,550 to Asia, 3,252 to Oceania, 2,276 to North America and 1,980 to South America.

The Natural History Museum in London holds the biggest assemblage of non‑European human remains, with at least 11,215 objects, and it also has the largest holdings from Asia as well as North and South America.

The University of Cambridge ranks second, with a minimum of 8,740 items in its Duckworth Laboratory, including the largest single collection – 6,223 specimens – identified as coming from Africa.

Among the 241 museums, universities and councils that store human remains, only 100 disclosed an exact or estimated count of individuals represented, amounting to roughly 79,334 people. The rest admitted they could not say, often because remains from different bodies had been mixed or because records were incomplete, leaving some items undocumented.

Several institutions reported that they keep a number of cardboard boxes filled with human remains but lack any knowledge of how many specimens are inside or where they originated.

Lord Paul Boateng said the data expose UK museums and universities as “imperial charnel houses where the bones of Indigenous peoples torn from Britain’s empire in the past, with little or no regard to the spiritual sensibilities of its people, continue to be retained to this day in circumstances that beggar belief”.

Bell Ribeiro‑Addy, MP and chair of the all‑party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations, called it barbaric that looted human remains are stored in boxes, with many museums unaware of their owners.

“That our country allowed such a large collection of human remains to be taken from other places and keep no record of them points to some sort of crime,” she added.

“The manner in which these remains are stored and displayed shows a total lack of respect. They are denied dignity, even in death. This is a great shame for our nation.”